#specifcally without AI

[gaysidesalad]

potential skybound #18 spoilers ?

kept seeing that one two page panel from the newest issue everywhere and thought it'd make a banger wallpaper

so i made this in 2560 x 1440 px, if anyone wants it

[zeeph-containment-zone]

VAPORWAVE/SYNTHWAVE LISTENERS:

I need you all to be aware that there seems to be a massive uptick in AI generated "music" clogging up youtube. As someone who's starting to get into writing their own vaporwave music and has wanted to write vaporwave for the past decade, this really upsets me for a lot of reasons!!!!

So I'm gonna show you how to spot these AI generated mixes::

WHILE WRITING THIS BLOGPOST I LEARNED MANY OF THESE SAME IDENTIFIERS APPLY TO WEIRDCORE / AMBIENT MIXES AS WELL!!!!

1) No Tracklist

Many of the AI generated mixes have no tracklists attached to them whatsoever. In my personal opinion, this is one of the biggest red flags. Some uploaders have added "track lists" but the names of the songs are pretty nonsensical even by vaporwave standards (example: "Helicopter Fly") and have no artist credited.

2) Suspiciously Long Uploads

If you're anything like me, you probably have noticed all videos on youtube search if you type "vaporwave mix" into the search bar are 3 or more fucking hours long.

I know there's some lengthy older mixes out there (example: Aisle 420, which has become a group listening background music staple whenever my friends and I play minecraft together!) but if it's fairly new and has a really obnoxious timestamp attached to it, be wary!

3) Extremely Specific Naming Scheme

Going to crossreference back to the images in number 2, one of the many things ALL these AI channels have in common is that they title all their mixes " Ｓｏｍｅｔｈｉｎｇ Ｉｎ Ｗｉｄｅ Ｔｅｘｔ ［ ＹＥＡＲ ］" Again, this is something older mixes have done before. But there's a very noticable difference between genuine mixes that incorporate a year into the title and these, especially when you look at the upload dates and how the naming scheme is extremely similar across all the channels that exhibit these patterns and AI usage.

4) Year in the Thumbnail Image

Much like Number 3, but specifcally in regards to the thumbnail image. There'll be a four digit number plastered in big text across the thumbnail. I have no idea why they all do this.

5) AI Generated Captions

Not just very likely AI generated, but also copypasta'd across every channel that's like this. Examples will speak better than explaining in text can.

Some things to note here are a weird fixation on copyright, and the phrase "Reposting This Content In Any Form is Strictly Prohibited!" being a shared factor.

6) AI Generated Visuals

This one is pretty easy to spot unless you're running youtube in a tab in the background.

7) Extremely "Samey" Sounding

So if you're like me and let youtube autoplay run while you're working, one of these may have decided to come on without you actually clicking on it. From what I've listened to when this happens, a lot of the music sounds very empty and "samey." As if you're listening to the same song for 10 minutes but it's actually all different songs. There's not much substance to any of the actual songs and also a very clear distinct lack of sampling. I don't want to include lack of sampling as it's own point, because it's entirely possible to compose music in-genre without sampling at all. However, none of these channels use samples. Not a single one, out of any of their several dozen three hour uploads.

8) Very Short Intervals Between Uploads

One of the things that made me start thinking "holy shit, are all these new playlists that're popping up AI generated?" was the upload dates. These channels will seeminly push out a new mix every couple of days, sometimes even every day.

Bro, you are NOT writing that much over that period of time.

9) Sometimes, They'll Just Admit It

youtube has also thankfully started flagging some of them with the tiny little disclaimer in the caption, which imo isn't enough seeing as they paste a whole AI generated novel in the caption half the time but at least it's something.

Channels I Can 100% Confirm Are AI:

•Retropical Records

-alts: Eternal Past (Weirdcore/Ambient) Nebula Breeze (Jazz?) and Dunes of Time (??? I can't be assed to click on any of those videos to find out, not gonna lie.)

•Utopic.Dreamer

•Luminescence

•Music Farm

•dream.surfer

•devs.fm

• FOR WEIRDCORE LISTENERS: aurora.heaven

-likely run by whoever's running utopic and dream surfer

Thank you so much for reading this through to the end. It's such a shame to see this genre go down this path and I hope we as creators can do something to offset it.

May your journey into the eternal mall be pleasant and AI-Free <3

[schizofujoshi]

The more fascinating aspect of AI to me is how it's unpacking the relationship between effort (or perhaps perceived effort is a better way to put it) and resultant artwork in a similar way to how the debate surfaces around abstract art, but from a much more concrete basis.

Surely, we can't measure the personal (specifcally, non-monetary) value of art by the effort that took to compose it as a piece, we know by now this is a tired argument that ignores major artistic developments and pieces especially from the last century (Marcel Duchamp and Barnett Newman being well-known examples), but the angle of those discussions is usually through its abstraction, i.e. a lack of aesthetics that would otherwise be expected for the average gallery viewer. Now, when speaking on AI art, we arrive at these discussions not speaking on any lack of aesthetics (though there is extensible criticism of those differing aesthetics, but that's unrelated to my point) but on the lack of perceived effort required to make that picture.

And my thoughts here are, it's not really helpful to call this "not art". Art is, at least to me, a piece of expression, what it expresses and whether that means something to the observer is the variable of 'quality', but to call something 'not art' is to dismiss its cultural effect and existence entirely. We can't make a useful argument here on the grounds of 'lack of effort', nor can we really make one on a basis of derivation (otherwise, we would owe it to ourselves to throw out collages and sample-based musical works as well). Arguments about 'humanity' are non-material, not just for the idea of a 'soul' going into it, but because it excludes a lot of art created/generated by tools, and thereby excludes a lot of art made by those without means or ability.

My conclusion here of a better criticism to make is by piece, by generator, with the acknowledgement of that it IS art, that it IS a piece that expresses something and has a ripple effect across culture, but it oftentimes by the individual piece is shallow! Boring! Uninteresting in what it is often used for. Big titted anime waifu smoking a bong is not interesting as an artistic premise by itself, and what a lot of non-machine art has as an advantage over it is that the artist can make it more interesting than its premise, utilising a high degree of customisation and control around its presentation in a way that AI tools and related are unable to do to the same effect. And this, by way, opens the door for AI-generated artpieces that are more generally interesting in themselves.

There's no need to take a big paintbrush to AI as a whole when we have already seen such interesting things arise from it, good or bad in your own judgements, just this discussion ALONE makes it extremely difficult to say it is 'not art'. We don't need to call things we dislike ideologically not art! We can acknowledge what it is without that acknowledgement needing to be a compliment in any sort of way.

[cerenemuxse]

Jimmy doodle/sketch dump in color ❤

(Ft. cameos of early concept art of my persona's new design. She's still a shapeshifting AI. Space buns are mandatory too.)

Please excuse any writing errors (yeah I mispelled "seperated" oops). The following is the text version of what's written.

First sketch page:

Thomas' Animal Friends s24 e22

Second sketch page (top to bottom, left to right)

I really liked how the expression came out before I added the lion costume so I seperated it.

Jimmy the canonical meow-meow

he's so adorable!

"Thomas' Animal Friends" (S.24 E.22)

*does anything but draw the wheels*

As I was writing this, the more I realized I could make a meme out of it so here it is.

Ok so now that's done with, I can ramble a bit about the drawings themselves.

I started this shortly after doing the Edward sketch dump that had the redraw of a scene from "Old Iron". I decided to draw out pre-rebuild Jimmy in a specific scene that I'm considering getting rid of and rewriting for something else. Poor baby. :[

Also the other sketch with the angy Jimmy is based on another scene in EoSR. Not saying where it's from as it is a bit of a spoiler lol (recently deleted a lot of posts where I did the opposite of that lol)

I couldn't help but draw James from that specifc screenshot. I was going to draw James in that outfit but when i finished drawing the "base", aka him without the costume, I really liked the expression I gave him. Nothing like the original screenshot xd but I really liked it so I seperated them.

Speaking of the lion costume, I had to adjust mine because damn, it just looked really off when I used the layout of the original screenshot. The odd shadow is supposed to be there as they're supposed to be the back legs. .3.

I'm pretty impressed with how I drew that specific James, despite his funnel being incorrectly placed (it should be right smack in the middle of his smokebox). I love this perspective in particular. Oh, and new details as thus one was using the most up-to-date design for him. :] (i avoided drawing the coupling, btw.)

And there's my persona, or at least quick doodles of my persona's new design. The crescent moon horns are gone, which were a mistake tbh. I didn't like them that much. The short hair and space buns stay though. Bottom right is my favorite.

[vattasref]

Mobile Add-on enabled Browsers

collecting a list of mobile (Android) browsers that can run add-ons/extensions and I can get Xkit Rewitten (Chrome / Firefox) to work on

(I WILL be adding extra links to this post on how to get to the add-ons/extensions bc they're all over the place)

I have more than 2 RP blogs atm, and would like to be able to access each one on mobile, without having to fiddle around with incognito/private tabs which close down and don't save passwords!

The two I use the most are both the Firefoxes, as this is a well known and trusted base Browser, and is wonderfully simple and streamlined. I would recommend these at first stop

Firefox Beta

Firefox Nightly

the rest I've only trialed to see if they run adequately, and I can't vouch for them as I haven't done any research on them, but in order of my personal preference from my limited use of each:

Kiwi Browser (Kiwi and Yandex tips)

Mises

Mask

Yandex

(there are obviously more but these are the ones I have personally tried and gotten XKR to load on so far, feel free to recommend me some to try/add!!)

(some of these have specifc uses, such as crypto or AI related, so they lean heavily into that and there are alot of "suggested" addons and links within the tabs pages etc, this can be annoying unless you only ever open Tumblr tabs)

check out my tutorials and refs here!

[an-unraveling-unknown]

OKSY SO it’s a narrative about an android who saw the fall of the first human race and witness the rise of the second one over millions of millions of years [no I have not gotten the important logistics of this down why do you ask] their name is Locke and THEYRE MY MILLIONS OF YEARFS OLD SILLY-BILLY I AFPRE THEM THEY KIND KF EMBODY CHANGE IN STORIES AND PASSING TIME but that’s besides the point. SO, they were built in an effort to contain all human fear somehow because it was ‘hindering the capabilities of this great race’ and all that, built mainly by a team of four scientists who were very passionate about the project and loved the android immensely but had their reservations about this ideal, and what it meant for both Locke (who who had a different, official name at the time, that roughly translates into ‘Surfiet’) and for the entirety of humans in general. So everyone died and Locke was left alone at the end of the first recorded self-mass extinction event which actually does things to an AI BUT I AM MOVING AWAY FROM THE POINT SO BACKING IT UP, I’m making this narrative VERY focused on myths and legends and stories and folklore from different cultures because I love stories and I said so, and one of the main ones are Greek Myths; Locke has similarities to an older version of Pan, they call the Physical Embodiment of Human Fear ‘Deimos,’ and I’m aiming to work a lot of other things in there as I work out where to run with this concept from here. Well, I had no names for the scientists mentioned above, and this had me in a chokehold for some reason and so I tried to brainstorm some. This proved to be more difficult than initially anticipated, BUT I HAD AN IDEA

“hey, there’s a running theme of stars and stuff in the story [“They glitter in different tongues.” “Every last one of the old constellations have burnt themselves out of the sky without a loving gaze to mourn them” (conversation between another character and Locke)] what if I name them a cluster of four stars that’d be neat”

…

*remembers the keystone constellation* “WAIT A DAMN MINUTE”

FOR THE UNINFORMED, the keystone constellation is essentially part of the larger constellation of Heracles, a greek demigod hero, son of Zeus by questionable means and all that. It is a trapezoid of sorts is composed of four stars, Zeta, Pi, Eta, and Epsilon

I THINK THIS IS VERY COOL THINKING ON MY PART, ONE BECAUSE IT CONNECTS TO GREEK MYTHOLOGY (because they too were fond of the stars and also BIG DEMIGOD GUY) (It should also be noted that the stars thing is also connected to Welsh folklore by extension), TWO BECAUSE THERES A BIG FOCUS ON LOCKE WITH STARS, AND THREE BECAUSE I REALLY LIKE THE CHEESY THING WITH “LOCKE AND KEY” BECAUSE REASONS

WHATS MORE,

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT because one of the beliefs held in this specifc sect of culture that the science team lived within said that once people die, they become a star, AND IN TURN LOCKE WAS PROGRAMMED WITH THIS IN MIND TOO I AM LOOFISNG ITF

hi. hello yes good morning good evening good afternoon greetings and pleasantries IHAD THOUGHTS AND DID A NEAT THING IN MY CURRENT HYPERFIXATION STORY AND I THINK I MAY PERHAPS SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST WITH GLEE IF I DPN’T TALK ABOUT ITF IM VERY PROUD OF MYSELF

[a-kouka-rat]

So, during this break of AnY I re-read almost every fanfiction I could find, and here are today’s fanfic picks. #1: What I saw in the moonlight One of the best pieces of fanfiction in this fandom. Well-written, engaging and finished. It was written before the XIng arc, so it features a completely different Xing situation. I think it’s better you go into it without knowing too much of what’s gonna happen. ( contains some mild violence). please read it and come discuss it with me a love this story so much. #2: A modern twist Basically, the HHB play truth or dare, and they are later joined by Lili, tae-jun and Suwon disquised as a a woman. (everyone keeps calling him M’lady ). Light hearted, fun, overall a joy to read. #3 :I don’t want to live on the moon Another one of these absolutely incredible fics. It’s ongoing, extremely well written and PAINFUL. I have to say I avoided starting this, because it has an OC as the protagonist. It takes a trope that is usually very badly handled and turns it into gold. (it contains violence)

#4: Soon We’ll be found I may not be very much into the HakYona ship, and I generally don’t read fanfics with the pairing as the main theme, but this one is a good one. It’s written in a really nice way and the amtosphere it creates is beautiful. (Warning though: It contains explicit sexual scenes :) ) #5 A heart-shaped box Oh, what is that? Did you say you want some good old OT3 pain? Don’t worry, I got you covered. There’s a bunch of OT3 fic to go around. I chose this one, because it’ well-rounded, well-written, short and painful. #6 Comfort If you read the previous fic and want something to put on the open wounds of your OT3 feelings heart, I have just the thing for ya. Warnign though :This is PURE SMUT. And it contains happy OT3 doing happy OT3 things and being merry. You’re welcome.

#7 To raise a king In case you still somehow are not acquainted with  fallenwithstyle’s Alien AU, here’s my advice: Start with this fic. Splendidly wirtten, and a great take on what one might consider nothing but a crack idea. And I wholeheartedly reccomend reading everything the author has written about thsi AU, they’re all golden pieces or writting (as is all her work in general). If you have no idea what this is about: Suwon is an alien AI. Trust me and read it even if it sounds crazy. #8 The blood of kings Judoh observes Suwon as he grows from the death of his dad onwards. I’ve read this a bunch of times. It’s well-written (from Judoh’s POV none the less!) and deals with Suwon’s teenage years, that are an unkown part of akayona, in a very believable and impactful way.

#9: Second impressions something in the same category as fic #8, Judoh getting to know teen!Suwon a little better. Deals with the subject of Suwon’s concealed abilities in a very nice way.

#10: Exploration by touch

If you’re into Joodoh/Soo-won, I suggest reading this, and everything else sorasan has written for this ship. The reason why I link this specifc fic is because it’s shippy but held back (a delight in ship fanfics, sometimes all you want is harmless fluff) and so a great starting point if you’re unsure about the ship or not familiar with it. (or you can  just jump straight into Once You Fall (which is rated E, mind you) and enjoy yet another rare find in fanfics: an Intercrural sex scene (in all my seven years of reading smut, I’ve come across this only twice)

#11 Godmother

Excellent choice if you’re more of a HHB kind of person. Well-written, with a unique style, this is the gangster AU you never knew you needed in your life. #12 The things we said

Compilation of exceptionally-written one-shots. Hak eats soap in one of them. Nice stuff. Read it.

#13: Fumbling

Warning, once again, this is porn. It’s also Soohak, so if you’re into that, I strognly suggest this little diamond. one of the first fics I read when I joined this fandom, and my go-to fic when I need my soohak feelings tank replenished.

Alright, so that’s it from me for now :)

if you go on AO3, you’ll find an awful lot more fanfics to read. With how small this fandom is, the number and the exceptional quality of fanfiction is impressive.

[notathrowawayname]

The issue is that they view art as something to be consumed. Not something to engage with or understand but for it to appeal to you. And so they will find the easiest path to creating what appeals to them, and out of a sense of pride because they get that rush of feeling like they've created something, they share it and claim it is their creation.

Thing is, the development of that interface to give you exactly what you want, will ultimately be what destroys it. At least in my opinion. One of the most important features of art is the fact that everyone can have their own interpretation and that people can discuss that, because they're talking about the same thing. But in a world where everyone gets catered to personally, that's not possible. No two people are ever getting the same output.

In the worst case scenario where this becomes widespread to the point of every single person getting every type of generative media, there are no conversations about any of them, because why would there be? You can tell someone that this output was great and show it to them, but the individual will have their own catered output, so why would they waste their time with stuff that wasn't designed specifcally for them?

AI generated content is for people who want to consume without engaging with any other human being about what they consumed. It's for people who think that either their opinion is the only one that matters, or think that everyone thinks like them.

But, and I'm sure many of us would agree, why the ever loving fuck would anyone share, watch, read, listen or otherwise engage in a form of media, if not for the express purpose of engaging with other people? And if not with other people engaging with that media, at the very least the artist themselves?

I don't doubt that AI art will become more widespread, but I also don't doubt the singularity for it is near. A critical mass of generated content is going to be reached and eventually, it'll be pointless for it to be shared. And when that happnes, it will have bitten its own tail.

Because when no one needs it anymore, it'll stop being profitable.

(Also before this happens I'm pretty sure regulation will kick in. Not because of good reasons but because: a) companies will enforce copyright on things and b) already a standard is being set that AI generated content is all public domain if it gets generated used publicly avialable information. The whole reason that they went with image generation in the first place was because there's a _fuckton_ of regulation everywhere else. Stuff like how you can't give out financial advice without being a licesnesd professional.)

It’s weird right? I went onto Stable diffusion a month or two back to see what this hype was about and initially? I was amazed. But then after an hour or two I realized- it takes *so much* trial and error to make something coherent and without artifacting. So many hours I wasted trying to make something ‘proper’ looking. They claim Auto-Gen (I refuse to call it AI) art is just as hard as regular art, and in a way? I think they’re both right, and painfully, painfully wrong. It *is* some form of work, and it *is* time consuming,

But it is *not* more time consuming than actually making the art yourself. It might take you just as many hours, but ultimately? You’ll spend just as much, if not MORE, time forcing a non-sapient bot to make the completed piece of art as close to your vision as possible, that you could just practicing to make it yourself. At that point, why *wouldn’t* you just say screw the bot and focus on trying to make the art yourself?

It makes no sense to me, and if anything, trying Diffusion out myself has only reinforced my distaste towards Auto-Gen art and the so called “artists” that swear by it and others like it

But it's like pointless to pretend it won't change someday, right? Their argument is that not wanting to draw should not be an obstacle to a drawing being there. It's an insane equation but that's the one they're obsessed with, and at this point the genart scene is far along enough where that is just a question of interface. Like you said. And eventually their "prompters" market will have its own implosion of intermediary optimizers or whatever and someday, somehow, they'll bridge that gap of translating their thoughts into the perfect input to feed into the machine and get the *exact* desired result.

No longer any conversational or communicative value in visual art. Everyone gets their own perfect things whenever and forever. That is what they want. And to any average joe, that sounds just fine. That was my point. They might be on the clown side of history for now, but if they solve the superficial interface problems, both public opinion and commerce will rally in support immediately.

Either way, I'd personally digress from the amount of labor argument and instead frame the question this way: exactly why can't a bunch of folks get okay with the fact that they simply don't want to draw? It's normal to not want to draw. That is not some flaw to optimize or ~*Disrupt*~. Just a choice you can make with two full outcomes - both equally acceptable if divorced from pride, of course. But it feels like so much of tech these days is swept up in ego and rife with the type of hero worship and cult behavior that promises to solve everything in the world with code. Even mentioning that summons immediate acronyms and buzzwords from recent memory.

So to me it's like. If they view art as an avenue of the human condition flaring up their insecurities, they'll deflect that truth and say it's actually just a market they haven't tapped into yet. Hence all this twisting in the wind trying to solve it with tech. And whatever their end point is, eventually, they might just get there.

Unless the datasets poison themselves into entropy before that, of course. Here's hoping